Teaching

How to Teach the Baha'i Faith, and How Not To

By John Taylor; 2007 August 28

My favorite definition of a teacher is "someone who saves you time." That is what Baha'u'llah does for us Baha'is. He offers shortcuts to fulfilling God's reasons for creating us. Baha'u'llah's Law, Writings, prayers, principles and Administrative Order, His calendar and Holy Days, all are more efficient ways than otherwise to shorten our journey to God. From a material viewpoint they may at times seem time-consuming, but in the aspect of eternity they are highly economical. Perhaps the most effective shortcut imaginable is to do all this for our neighbor by teaching this Faith to them. If we succeed in igniting a flame of love for God and His Cause, the results are infinite, incalculable, never-ending. The Bab confirmed this in the Persian Bayan,

"It is better to guide one soul than to possess all that is on earth, for as long as that guided soul is under the shadow of the tree of Divine Unity, he and the one who hath guided him will both be recipients of God's tender mercy, whereas possession of earthly things will cease at the time of death." (Selections, 77)

So, do not waste time collecting material possessions that will only burden you. Material goods must be recycled; even your body will be recycled. Rather, center your thoughts on what is worthy, what will continue to live and grow beyond the grave. As teachers of Faith we offer this shortcut to eternal wealth.

But never imagine that because it is shorter it is a mere trick. It is shorter because it is empowered by the greatest force in the universe, love. Love is a wormhole across the infinite space that separates hearts; it is surely the Most Great Shortcut! That is why our gift of this spiritual roadmap does not come across by "winning" an argument, or by contending in any way. The Bab, in the next sentence after the one cited above, tells exactly in what spirit to offer it:

"The path to guidance is one of love and compassion, not of force and coercion." (Id.)

Here is exactly how to teach, and how not to. It cannot be forced. This is why fundamentalism always undercuts the fundamentals it sets out to uphold. You cannot teach love by hating, or knowledge through fanatical ignorance. No divine shortcut, however sublime, can undercut God's first fundamental: "Choose life." The teachings of God are a shortcut to life that applies love's attraction to get there with optimum efficiency. No other instrumentality can stand before this fundamental.

There may be some Baha'i teachers who use pantomime or silent film making to teach, but I am sure that they are not in the majority. The Writings are quite emphatic that the lion's share of our teaching has to be done by means of words. So today let us think about what words to use in teaching the Faith.

When I was on the "Army of Light" street teaching teams in Alaska back in the 1970's they taught us a very effective way to summarize the Baha'i Faith in a few words. For example, you have only three seconds to reply when somebody asks, "What is the Baha'i Faith?" What do you say? "Baha'is believe in the unity of humanity." Five seconds? "Baha'is are followers of Baha'u'llah, who taught the unity of humanity." We practiced with one another until we could easily expand this spiel indefinitely, anywhere from thirty seconds to several minutes. I was interested recently to stumble across the following instructional site explaining how to craft your own "Elevator Pitch."

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/08/how-to-craft-killer-elevator-pitch-that.html

This of course is very general. It tells how to explain any idea or passion, which in our case is God's Cause, in the time that you might get while traveling with somebody on an elevator. This usually works out to a few minutes. We could adapt it to train ourselves in a very similar manner to the "soldiers" in the Army of Light.

That covers how to teach. Let us talk a little about how not to teach.

Myself, I rarely run across Baha'is doing what the Bab warned against, trying to force the Faith down other peoples' throats. Tempting as it is to argue, we know enough not to get into religious contention; Baha'u'llah was most emphatic that this is anathema and we comply. No, the most common problem I see is that we forget the dramaturgical or thespian requirements of teaching. That is, we talk and act around non-Baha'is exactly as if they were Baha'is.

The last large fireside I attended was a good example. The speaker was talking about a Baha'i teaching project. It became obvious that you cannot teach the Faith by talking about teaching the Faith. They are not the same thing. One Baha'i, call her S, realized this and loudly protested that there were non-Baha'is there and maybe we should talk about the Baha'i Faith itself a little. The speaker steadfastly ignored this and several other more subtle hints. At one point the speaker turned the discussion briefly over to me. Rather than argue, I turned to the non-Baha'i guest and asked her about her religious background. She was happy to share that with us but had hardly opened up her mouth when S interrupted and brought the discussion back to the very thing she had protested about earlier, idle talk about teaching the Baha'i Faith. I felt terrible. It was like being in a Monte Python sketch except that it was not funny at all. Here we were in a teaching situation and all we could talk about were the problems and tribulations of being in teaching situations.

Think about it. Philosophy did not start when people began babbling about philosophical issues. It began when Socrates, by giving his life for truth, made it into a living, human story of truth transcending the grave. Teaching is drama. Same thing with religion; it always starts with the life and sacrifice of a Holy Individual. His struggles and sufferings give the love impulse that turns into faith. We cannot forget that when we are in a teaching situation. We do not get brownie points for "honesty" by acting so naturally that we ignore the dramatic requirements of the situation.

That is why I was enthralled to discover that when John Mighton figured out how to teach mathematics to young children the assistants he enlisted to work as tutors to kids, and at the same time help him perfect the method were not fellow mathematicians or even teachers, they were actors. As a playwright he had many friends in the acting fraternity who needed spare cash, and who were perfectly suited to put on a performance that would attract children to numbers. I believe it. Teaching is acting, and acting is teaching. An actor after all offers us a shortcut to emotions that we would feel in any given situation. We learn far more about applied psychology from an academy award winning performance as any psych lecturer could convey in the same amount of time. Most of their histrionic nudges away from innumeracy are just as applicable to our teaching of the Baha’i Faith. Next time, I will go over some of their lessons how _not_ to tutor math.